Reflecting on my CORE Center experience

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“Sit tall, stand tall, walk tall.” Those were the words of Taylor Isaacs, the kinesiology professor/exercise therapist/all around SCI and body movement master who has helped a number of people achieve significant recovery from devastating injuries. I was honored to spend a few days last week at CORE Center working and learning from someone who takes a different approach to recovery than the traditional methods I’ve become accustomed to. It’s not easy to sum up Taylor’s approach but if I had to start with one word, it would be holistic.

Upon arriving to Southern California and creating an instantaneous bond with Taylor, Aaron Baker, Laquita and the CORE Center family (see my last post for a background of these amazing people), Taylor asked me questions. LOTS of questions. He wanted to know every detail about my accident, every detail of my regimen since then, my diet, my sleep patterns, my energy levels, my specific progress and how I had measured it, my psychological state, and as I conjured up the answers to the many questions, he took meticulous notes and responded in his easing South African accent, “brilliant, excellent, brilliant.”

I didn’t know what to expect from Taylor but within seconds of meeting him, I knew I could trust him, and that I would. After all, this guy was an expert among experts about how the body moves and had spent years applying his previous knowledge and varied experience with everyone from high level athletes to everyday people to those of us suffering from injuries like SCI. What I saw in Taylor and what made me so excited to work with him was an attitude of possibility and capability. These are words not commonly spoken to someone who has suffered a SCI; after all, we’re always being reminded of our disability and told to adapt to the circumstances, instead of trying to tackle the circumstances head on and bring about change.

The time I spent with Taylor was incredibly fruitful. After a couple days of meticulously testing different muscles and assessing my current condition, I was a bit surprised that the exercise regimen he sent me home with didn’t involve standing or leg exercises or weights or really anything complicated. It was a 20 minute daily regimen that he called Postural Reprogramming, meant to correct my posture, strengthen my abdominal and back muscles and get me sitting taller, which would lead to standing and walking taller.

Of course there are no guarantees from any therapist or practitioner and Taylor did not prognosticate anything. But what I learned from his approach was to look at the body as a whole, and understand that before I could take a step or stand up on my own, I would need to get my body into the right position for it to do what it wants to do: to move as efficiently as possible or put another way, to use the least amount of effort and energy to perform a movement. According to Taylor, “by doing this, we’re going to take those blocked neural pathways, we’re going to flood them with neural energy and turn them into neural superhighways!”

I’m including a couple of quick videos that are examples of the simple, yet challenging movements that are a part of my Postural Reprogramming regimen:

 

As I wrote about in my last post, the other main reason I was excited for this trip was to meet Aaron Baker, a true hero in my eyes and someone who consistently inspires me. I felt a kinship with Aaron the moment I met him. Of course, he has been through this injury and achieved outstanding recovery but it went beyond that. Through many hours of conversation, we were able to share our perspectives on our injuries, our lives and the world as a whole. Aaron’s mindfulness, focus and intention emanated from him and inspired me further. It was clear to me that despite his astounding recovery, this injury was still a huge part of him, and it always would be, but he had found peace, something I still have trouble doing. It was an honor to share this time with these amazing people and I’m already looking forward to my next visit to CORE Center. Until then, I’ll be reprogramming my posture…

CORE Family

One in a million and a trip to SoCal

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One in a million. Those were the odds that were given to Aaron Baker for his chances to ever feed himself again. Aaron suffered a Spinal Cord Injury similar to mine 14 years ago and these were the words that his doctor told his mother. Nothing about walking, nothing about standing up on his own, or even pushing himself in a wheelchair, but just simply his chances for feeding himself.

In my last post I shared the new page on my blog highlighting the stories that are inspirational to me and front and center among those is Aaron’s story. Through years of hard work and unwavering determination, not to mention incredible support from his mother and community, Aaron slowly regained control of his body and was able to fight his way back to his feet, and to his bike! A formerly sponsored motocross racer, he traded his motorized dirt bike for a road bike and ended up crossing the country twice, riding over 6,000 miles to share his story and raise awareness about SCI. Now he has opened a rehab gym north of Los Angeles with the intention to help as many other people with SCI and other injuries as possible.

I bring this up not only because of the continued inspiration I get from Aaron’s story but also because after speaking to him on the phone and learning more about the methods that he used for his recovery and his amazing, one-of-a-kind therapist Taylor (a kinesiology mastermind who now runs the therapy program at Aaron’s gym), I’ve decided to take a short break from my typical schedule and come to Southern California for a few days to mix things up again. I’ve mentioned how helpful it is for me to change my patterns, go somewhere new, meet new people and have different people work with me so that’s what has brought me here.

I could not be more grateful for this opportunity to come and meet people who in my eyes are like superheroes. I see people like Aaron, Laquita (his mother), and Taylor as beacons of shining light amidst a pervasive darkness in the SCI recovery world. For every one like them there are too many other people who say that to not get used to this “disabled” reality is to do yourself an injustice and to put “unrealistic” dreams of recovery to the side and move on with life. I’m honored to have this opportunity to meet these incredible individuals and I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with them in my next post.